17 September 2008

Sarah Palin - Tranny?

I love politics enough such that I have majored in it. But I hadn't planned on blogging about Sarah Palin because so many other people are doing it so well with opinions that match mine. However, recently a column used transphobia to attack her. I just couldn't ignore that without calling it out.

Michael Seltzman wrote at the Huffington Post a column titled "Sarah Palin Naked" which starts off just as sexist and misogynistic as it sounds. In talking about wanting to have sex with Sarah Palin, because obviously that's an appropriate thing for political discourse, he offers the following:

My wife is cool with this if I promise to "first wipe off Palin's tranny makeup." I married well.

Haha. I'm laughing so hard. A real comedian there, his wife. Transphobia is so funny. Especially when it's also expressing lookism at the same time. Because I find it hard to believe that she's complimenting Palin on her gender presentation. Instead, it's fairly clear she expressing the stereotypical view that transwomen use makeup poorly. She's calling into question Palin's womanhood.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I despise the word "tranny". It has the same history as the despicable "shemale", coming to us from the porn industry to describe a fetishistic type of porn with transwomen. Just google "tranny" and you'll find that most results, other than sites of transfolk trying to reclaim the word, point to porn images of transwomen. When not using it for porn, straight cispeople use it in the same way they use "man in a dress", to discredit people. Not that I'm happy when queer cispeople use it either, but they generally don't seem to intend insult.

So, while I'm no fan of Sarah Palin, and certainly fear what would happen if she became Vice-President, I do have to protest the use of transphobia to assault her. Want to attack her? There are plenty of ways to legitimately do so, calling her out on her political policies and actions. But, knock off the transphobia and sexism. I don't want to have to defend people I don't like.

2 comments:

I think you are very wrong, about many things you say. For one thing, when I say "tranny" and it is not referring to a car, I am not trying to insult anyone - unless that person is actively lying about what they are and so they take insult by the truth being mentioned, perhaps. And, that would be the case with Sarah Palin if she is a tranny, as many people suspect that she is. She is pretending to have been born with a fully functioning set of female genitalia that led to her given birth in the traditional, female manner, and representing herself as an Alaskan female when it is doubtful she is female and she is only Alaskan by the standards of some non-Alaskans.

To say that straight people mean to be insulting every time they say tranny shows your own phobias. Tranny is short for transexual, transgender, transvestite and anyone who is going through the process of any of them. It saves time in trying to sort out which word best applies and insulting people by guessing wrong.

And, quite frankly, someone who is pretending to be a female is insulting females as assuredly as someone in black face is insulting black people. But, most of the time that is forgiven or even completely overlooked, as long as the person is not making a caricature of womanhood all together and as long as the person is not pretending to be something they are not - a natural born woman - with all the hormonal issues, cramps, labor pains, etc. of the natural gender, and, then holding themselves up as an ideal woman.

That is hurtful and hateful and inhuman to treat woman as if they are worth less than you simply because you were born with a penis and then had it chooped off and got fake body parts and fake hormones added in.

And, I am real tired of people like you acting as if the people who behave that way toward women are the ones that are being insulted.

I mean, get over it. They chose to be what they are and they knew it wasn't going to be easy going in. Whereas, I, and other real women, were just born this way.

And, p.s. - no, I did not come here just to say that at you. I was looking for information on Sarah Palin for my own purposes of research.

But, you know what, someone who is transgendered, transexual or transvestite should likewise be as insulted as someone who is just a natural born woman by the very idea that people are out there who are totally lying and denying what they are, trying to trick other people.

I mean, if she is a tranny... shhh .. if she is any one of the types of persons that are often called tranny ... and, she's lying about it, why? To glorify herself and to hide the shame of the truth of her existence. To get the edge on real women by pretending to be one, but, better.

Shouldn't someone who feels they have a reason to get that sort of surgery be something other than ashamed and lying about it? They wouldn't feel that way, if they weren't all about lies and deceit.

So, you shouldn't be offended by the idea that someone may have meant to insult a person who is out there pretending to be something they are not - or, probably that's what they are doing You should be insulted that the person who is doing the pretending is insulting both all trans-persons and all women, at the same time and lying to the entire world - at least, probably, that is what they are doing.

Get your priorities straight. Intentional deceit and insult is much worse than privately spoken unintentional insult And, it would be unintentional if it insulted anyone but Sarah Palin, the perceived liar to and insulter of all.